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Human Touch. US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright helps Tran Thi-Cam Van in a wheelchair which Albright presented to the nine-year-old Vietnamese girl during her visit to a rehabilitation center near Ho Chi Minh City in 1997. In recent years, the US and Vietnam have moved a long way toward mending relations. (Click for full size. 17K)

Read the accompanying stories about individual discussion groups from the Emerging From Conflict program:
The US and Cuba

The US, Iran, and Iraq

The US and North Korea

The US and Vietnam

The Emerging From Conflict report contains four individual reports and is available in two formats.

Download the full report as an Adobe Acrobat PDF:
Emerging From Conflict: Improving US Relations With Current and Recent Adversaries
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Or download the individual PDF reports:
Cuba and the United States: Approaches to Engagement
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US Relations With Iran and Iraq: Convergence and Contention in the Persion Gulf
(Adobe Acrobat Reader required.)

US Relations With North Korea: Prospects for Engagement
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The United States and Vietnam: Three Years After Normalization
(Adobe Acrobat Reader required.)

Visit the Common Ground Web site for transcripts and audio of the radio programs:

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Visit the Emerging From Conflict Web site.

New Stanley Foundation push to improve US relations with current and recent adversaries

In 1986 the Communist leaders of Vietnam cast aside a cherished belief. Their economy was going nowhere while, at the same time, the market economies of the countries around them were booming. Serious help from the Soviet Union, a Communist ally, was unlikely. So, Vietnam's leaders dropped central planning, introduced market reforms, and began to open up to the West.

That major policy shift set in motion a series of events which about four years ago made possible the normalization of diplomatic relations with the US. Today, Vietnam is still a Communist country but pursues market reforms. And, after first normalizing diplomatic relations with the US, Vietnam is now negotiating a trade agreement and pushing for normal trade relations.

Can the course US-Vietnam relations followed over the last decade be replicated with other countries currently in or emerging from conflict with the US? Mark Sidel, Senior Program Consultant, and Sherry Gray, Program Officer, of the Stanley Foundation pose that question in the concluding essay to a new report, "Emerging From Conflict: Improving US Relations With Current and Recent Adversaries." The report also contains an explanation of the foundation's new Emerging From Conflict program and reports on discussion groups that covered US relations with Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Vietnam.

Troublesome Relationships
Emerging From Conflict is a project that takes on some of the US most troubling bilateral relationships. In introducing the project to groups who focused on these relationships last fall at the Stanley Foundation's 39th annual Strategy for Peace Conference, Richard H. Stanley, foundation president, noted that during the Cold War the foundation worked on US-Soviet relations even when that was not politically popular. The Cold War is gone, Stanley said, "but the need for dialogue and understanding with other states remains. We have demonized some of them, and they have demonized us. Our government has labeled some of them rogue states, and they have expressed similar or stronger characterizations of us."

The foundation's goal, Stanley added, is to strengthen dialogue and understanding. "Our premise is that we, as a nation and as citizens, can deal with conflict more effectively—manage it better—if we improve our knowledge of the circumstances, develop a better understanding of the needs and situations of our adversaries, and facilitate their increased knowledge of us and our concerns."

Sidel and Gray acknowledge the hazards involved in taking on politically charged relationships. "One added challenge to this project is that the problem of improved US relations with current adversaries is one that many involved do not wish to see resolved," they write.

Reflecting on the conference discussions on Cuba, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, and Vietnam, they observed that the participants in all the discussion groups agreed that "the leaders of some states under discussion may be dictatorial, repressive, dangerous to their citizens' well-being, and disruptive of international peace and stability. Many participants also agreed that the leadership of certain states should be replaced.... Nevertheless, these discussions all began from the premise that improved bilateral relations may be possible even before leadership transition takes place, and that responsible domestic and foreign policies begin in peace."

Project Elements
The fall 1998 conference discussions (see accompanying stories about individual groups) were the first major events in the Emerging From Conflict project. Numerous follow-up programs are planned for 1999 and beyond.

In general, programs fall into two categories—national-level dialogues on US policy and bilateral or multilateral programs that involve US nationals and representatives from the targeted countries and/or their neighbors. In 1999 it is anticipated that there will be national policy dialogues on Iran, Cuba, and China. (China is much further along than the other countries in the evolution of its relationship to the US, but it is included in the project because it too has gone from conflict to normalization.) It is also possible that the foundation will help support the formation of a Korea Policy Group to focus on North Korea.

Bilateral or multilateral meetings are also in the planning stages. A meeting in Havana may focus on US-Cuba relations. A conference on China's national interests is scheduled for San Francisco. Other possible conferences include a meeting on US-Vietnam relations in Hanoi and a look at prospects for enhancing security through economic cooperation in Northeast Asia.

Vietnam-US Experience
Of course, the bilateral relationship between the US and each of these countries is unique. However, in their essay, Sidel and Gray postulate that, at least on some general points, the Vietnam experience can instruct. "Vietnam's experience," they write, "highlights the successful strategies used by pro-normalization factions on both sides that could be adapted to other similar situations. Nonetheless...each case is unique, and two countries can be divided by conflicting national interests and divergent historical experiences that militate against any common situation, project, or solution."

Once Vietnam decided to change its economic direction, they note, it moved without hesitation. The government and Communist Party organs were consistent in implementing the new policy. For its part, the US was ready to respond because the Soviet Union was collapsing, Vietnam seemed less of a threat to the region, and on the domestic political front, opposition to an opening to Vietnam had waned.

Sidel and Gray write, "One country enmeshed in a deeply antagonistic relationship with the US was able to make dramatic and positive changes in that relationship within a relatively short period of time. Vietnam resolved to improve its relations with the US, which is the decision that must precede any action."

Similar actions may not be possible with the other countries included in the Emerging From Conflict program. For internal reasons, they may not be ready to move toward the US. And, even if they did, in some instances the US may not be able to respond for its own reasons.

Still, the premise of the Emerging From Conflict program is that trying to move relations forward is worth the effort, even when it seems very difficult. "Relations between any two countries," according to Sidel and Gray, "rest upon layers of cultural understanding, historical precedent, conceptions of national interest, and the capacity to exercise political, military, or economic power. The challenge is to continue to create forums—direct and indirect, governmental and nongovernmental—for peaceful resolution."